UVa. student who died took drug Molly, dad says

WASHINGTON – As police await the autopsy results of the University of Virginia sophomore who died after collapsing at D.C.’s Echostage night club, Mary “Shelley” Goldsmith’s dad says his daughter’s friends told him she took the drug Molly, a purified form of ecstasy.

Robert G. Goldsmith tells The Washington Post his family decided to tell people as a way to open other people’s eyes to the dangers of the drug.

He tells WTOP, “Nobody’s immune. If it could happen to Shelley it could happen to anybody.”

Police sources say friends of Goldsmith, from Abingdon, Va., told authorities the 19-year-old took the drug at the club, the Post reports.

“She was doing everything right, and she did one thing wrong,” Robert Goldsmith tells WTOP. “It led to her death.”

Toxicology results will determine the official cause of death.

Police in D.C. say this is the first case they’ve encountered of a lethal form of Molly. Law enforcement officials tell the Post that while Molly has long been the street name for ecstasy – or the powder form of its main ingredient – it has more recently become a generic term for designer drugs.

In Boston and New York, investigators are looking into whether one batch of Molly is to blame for three deaths, as well as other overdoses.

Police in D.C. want to know whether the drug Goldsmith took was from that same batch.

Speaking with WTOP on Friday, Robert Goldsmith — who says he’d never heard of Molly until Shelley’s friends told him about it — remembers his daughter as “a model young person.”

“She was stellar academically,” he says. “She was at the University of Virginia on a full academic scholarship.”

Goldsmith says his daughter had also been involved in her community, church and scouts.

“I think colleges and universities have an opportunity to help people like Shelley know what the consequences could be,” he says. “I think we need to find a way to keep this from happening.”